


You Might See this Wanted Man

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean should be at Pastor Jim's, but John Winchester sees a familiar-looking face outside a Red Lobster in Richardson, Texas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Might See this Wanted Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is in answer to a prompt [](http://zortified.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://zortified.livejournal.com/)**zortified** gave me over a year ago - _Jensen meets John Winchester_. Title from Johnny Cash.

John Winchester sat behind the wheel of his truck, keeping surveillance on an ordinary suburban house in Richardson, Texas. There weren't any demons around, not that he knew of, no angry spirits or inhuman creatures. Two hours before, John had watched as his son, as Dean walked into that house, and he was sure as hell going to be there when the boy walked out.

None of it made sense. Dean was supposed to be in Minnesota, doing some work for Jim Murphy and brushing up on his dead languages. All John really cared about was that Dean got his shit together. The month they hunted together after Sammy took off for California had been a mess, Dean raw around the edges, the both of them scraping against each other like pieces of a broken machine. John had work to do, and he could work better alone than he could with Dean fucking up all over the place. John knew he was fucking up plenty himself, but being alone made it easier to focus, easier to pretend that both of his boys were together back at Jim's or Bobby's or some crappy apartment just outside his grasp.

For two months now, Dean should've been at Jim's, and last John had checked he had been there, rebuilding the engine of Jim's old Ford and cussing over Aramaic. Sometime in the intervening weeks--for some reason that John couldn't fathom--Dean had come down to Texas and gotten himself in with some apple pie family, even traded out his normal clothes for polos and slacks and put some kind of streaks in his hair. Highlights, for God's sake.

And John didn't even want to think about where the Impala might be, but it wasn't in the house's driveway. The garage was closed, but John could see the Toyota SUV Dean had gotten out of earlier parked next to a Lexus sedan. Dean didn't belong in this place, neither of them did. If the boy didn't come out soon, John was going to wait until dark to do some recon up close, figure out what kind of cover he should use to get inside the house.

The whole thing had started when John was stuck in the slowest goddamn Burger King drive-thru he'd ever seen. All he wanted was some lunch, fast and cheap, and he couldn't see anything in any of the nearby strip-malls that wasn't some kind of chain or other. So he was sitting in his truck with the windows rolled down, waiting for the kid inside to figure out how to work the fryer or whatever the hell was causing the hold-up, and watching people walk in and out of the Red Lobster right across the parking lot.

When a familiar face drew his attention, he'd turned to stare. Dean, walking out of the restaurant with a middle aged couple and a teenage girl, the girl far too young to be one of Dean's conquests. Dean knew better than that, at least John prayed he did. Outside that damn chain restaurant, Dean was smiling, laughing with his head dropped back, relaxed and happy the way John hadn't seen for months. Maybe longer than that.

John had watched the four of them get inside a silver SUV and then ducked out of the drive-thru lane to follow them. The older man drove, and nobody in the car noticed that they had a tail, big as John's truck was. John followed them down the main strip of stores and restaurants and then off onto a quieter road and eventually into a subdivision full of big houses with big yards. John thought about calling Jim, maybe calling Dean to see what he'd say, if he'd lie. There was always the possibility that what they were dealing with here was a skinwalker, but those bastards usually had to see the form they were copying, and Dean was supposed to be close to a thousand miles away.

Finally, just as dusk was starting to fall, Dean walked out of the house alone and got behind the wheel of the SUV. He pulled out of the driveway and John followed him, sure that his son would realize he was being tailed, that he would pull over and explain himself. More disturbingly, he didn't seem to notice a thing, just drove back out onto the main road, singing to himself and drumming on the steering wheel at stop lights. He didn't stop until he got to a convenience store and then he walked right inside, hardly even looking around.

John parked around the back of the building and settled himself just behind the corner near the door and waited. When he saw Dean come out with a twelve-pack in hand, John grabbed him by the back of his fruity polo shirt collar and dragged him back behind the dumpster, clamping a hand over the boy's mouth when it looked like he was about to start a ruckus.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Dean's eyes were wide, terrified, and for the first time John felt a tendril of uncertainty enter his brain, that maybe this wasn't really his son. But he'd seen those eyes a million times, the flecks in the green just the same, the tilt of the nose, the mouth, his height and shape, everything just the same. John shook his head, shook Dean's shoulder. "Who are those people? You're supposed to be at Jim's."

Dean shook his head wildly in John's grasp, his whole body shaking. He punched out at John's head and tried to kick, but his moves were telegraphed, his blows easily blocked. It was all wrong; Dean could fight better than this before he started high school, and the fear in the familiar green eyes was far beyond reasonable. John would get on Dean's case for disobeying orders, no doubt, but Dean never had any reason to fear John this way. Not this wild terror, the screams muffled behind John's hand.

The more he looked, from up close there were some differences. The bad cut on Dean's forehead that had just begun healing when John last saw him should have still been visible, but there was nothing other than smooth skin. And his flailing hand, gripped tight in John's, was far too soft, no calluses from working with the guns or knives, no knuckles busted up from working on the car. His arms were slimmer, too, lacking some of Dean's muscle, his face thinner.

He wasn't screaming anymore, but his lips were moving against John's hand, and when John listened, he could hear the boy whispering. "Please, no, please God no. Whoever you are, please, please, no." John felt sick to his stomach. No human being had begged him like that, begged for their lives, for thirty years.

John kept one hand tight over the boy's mouth but dropped his other hand and stepped away as far as he could without losing his grip. "Dean?" He made his voice calm, as non-threatening as he could manage, which wasn't saying much. "You're not Dean, are you?"

The boy shook his head. "No," he husked out, his voice ruined from the muted screaming. With a trembling hand, the boy pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and held it out to John. "Take it. Take it," he repeated, his voice muffled behind John's hand.

John took it. One-handed, he flipped it open. The California driver's license could have been one of Dean's, a picture he'd never seen before but that looked like it was from a couple years earlier. The name on it was Jensen Ackles, and it could've been a good fake, but everything in the wallet matched--bank cards, credit cards, voter registration, health insurance, expired library card--far more than he or Dean would ever bother with for a fake--and there were pictures of the family John had seen, a school picture of the girl but a few years younger, her face bright with braces.

John rubbed the leather wallet against the thigh of his jeans to clean off his prints and then held it out, two fingers clamped on the edges. "Ackles?" The boy nodded, his eyes still wide, and took back his wallet. "I'm sorry." The boy started to shake again, slumping back against the brick wall of the store, and John let him go. A few quick steps got John to his truck, and then he was off, peeling out of the parking lot. He watched in his rear-view mirror as the boy who looked so much like Dean slid down to crouch against the wall, his face in his hands.

It had been a mistake, a bad mistake, and John had to admit that Dean wasn't the only one off his game. He would get the black dog, burn it, and then head back up to Jim's. After all, Dean might need some help with that engine.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a timestamp [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2158902/chapters/4719645).


End file.
